Re:Spamming for dumbasses (Score 1)

Last question first:

No; it wasn't. It was designed to interconnect computers using an open set of protocols, with no particular purpose in mind. As such, it did not, and does not, imply that computers connected to it are public property, or public-access devices. It was, in short, designed to allow people to internconnect their computers with others of their mutual choice--NOT, I repeat, not, to be targets of others with something to promote.

I'm at a loss to see how, in your item #1, "they" can pay for the bandwidth. Bandwidth cost occurs all the way from sender to receiver. Whoever "they" are, if they send something to me or a client of mine, a certain cost occurs here; the same goes for everywhere else, in proportion. When "they" send their material, will they also send me a check to "pay for the bandwidth?" I'm still waiting...

There is a place for e-mail marketing, provided it is 100% opt-in - not the self-serving perversion of the term spammers have tried to pass off.

If it meets these criteria then it's not spam:

• Did I ask for it FIRST?
• Did I ask for it actively; that is, did I take action to specifically request the material? (For example, did I visit a web site for that item or vendor, find a check box authorizing sending promitional mail UNCHECKED BY DEFAULT and make a point of checking it?)
• Is it from the party I requested it from? (e.g., If I asked for such mail from Consolidated Widgets, does it come from Consolidated Widgets and not some "partner" or other peripherally related business?)

  (The above means that "purchasing an opt-in list" is, with a very few exceptions, a contradiction in terms. If the list is of those opting into Consolidated Widgets' list, why would CW buy the list from itself? Therefore, anyone buying that list must be someone other than Consolidated Widgets. The list is then no longer opt-in, since opting into CW's list is

  not opting into whoever bought the list.)

Now, what do you mean by "properly regulated and controlled?" Who is regulating it? I assure you, if anyone wants to "regulate" that bank of computers over on the other wall which comprise my business, they'd damn well better buy them first. Keep the cotton-pickin' government out of it. As long as they are mine, others connecting to them and depositing data into them do so at my invitation and expense--except that spammers get away with doing so because of the difficulty of barring them outright. That is trespass.

The bottom line is: any, absolutely any, e-mail arriving in my box which is not by my invitation is spam; it is wrong, morally and practially, and will result in my acting to get the offender nuked. Invitation means I asked for it FIRST. I paid for the server; it's mine and I have the right to accept or reject what I like. I accept spam only because, like the rest of the net, I haven't the means to block it all without disrupting legitimate material. And please, PLEASE, don't hand off that "save the trees" stuff. Postal "junk" mail may eat up trees, but it does so at the sender's expense, not mine as recipient. That makes all the difference. Spam is promotion send postage-due, without the option to refuse.